Four Canadians killed in 'friendly fire'

Four Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan last night after a US fighter jet mistakenly dropped one or two 500lb, laser-guided bombs on their unit.

Canadian officials said at least eight of their soldiers were wounded in the incident, which occurred during a well publicised live-fire training exercise near the southern town of Kandahar.

Navy commander Frank Merriman, spokesman for US central command in Tampa, Florida, confirmed that an air national guard F-16 dropped the bomb or bombs, but he had no idea what had caused the error.

Canadian defence officials said they had been offered the full cooperation of the US in investigating the tragedy.

"How this can happen is a mystery to us. Without a doubt, there was a misidentification," said Canada's defence chief, Lieutenant-General Ray Henault. According to Canadian defence officials, their soldiers were on a night time training exercise about 10 miles (16 km) south of their Kandahar base when the bombing occurred at 1.55am local time (11.25pm BST).

Lt Gen Henault said the area is recognised as a training area and the aircraft were using very strictly controlled routes.

Canadian defence officials said two of the wounded soldiers have life-threatening injuries, one has very serious injuries and five have serious injuries.

The Canadian prime minister, Jean Chretien, said the US president, George Bush, had called to offer his condolences and pledged to assist a Canadian investigation.

"As to the circumstances of what appears to have been a terrible accident, clearly there are many questions that the families, and all Canadians, expect to have answered," Mr Chretien said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from the White House.

About 700 Canadian troops are fighting alongside US and European troops seeking to hunt down remnants of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organisation and holdouts from Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban militia.

The bombing is among the worst 'friendly fire' accidents since the US-led campaign began in October.

On December 5, a B-52A dropped a bomb on US and allied Afghan forces near Kandahar, killing three Americans and at least seven Afghans, and slightly wounding Hamid Karzai, now Afghanistan's interim leader. The investigation is not complete, but officials have said there were errors in transmitting target coordinates to the plane's crew.

On December 22, US aircraft struck a convoy near Khost, killing dozens of Afghans. Some Afghans say the convoy was carrying tribal leaders to Mr Karzai's inauguration, but US military commanders insist it was a legitimate target.